Boreades
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"The World's Greatest Test Pilot tells his story"
A marvellous story, with very strong naval connections. Like being one of a handful of survivors after being torpedoed on his aircraft carrier.
He still has the world record for carrier landings, 65 years on. Apparently the US Navy had dedicated a pilot to beat the record, but had to be pulled out after 'only' 1600, because of a nervous breakdown.
He was the first to land a Mosquito on a carrier. But the experts weren't sure it was possible.
Mosquito stalling speed: 120 kts
Max carrier landing speed: 86 kts
So he landed the Mosquito on the carrier anyway, to prove them wrong.
Not once, but five times!
Publisher's blurb:
Eric "Winkle" Brown was on a University of Edinburgh exchange course in Germany in 1939, and the first he knew of the war was when the Gestapo came to arrest him. They released him, not realizing he was a pilot in the RAF volunteer reserve: and the rest is history. Eric Brown joined the Fleet Air Arm and went on to be the greatest test pilot in history, flying more different aircraft types than anyone else. He is the only man alive who has flown every major (and most minor) combat aircraft of the Second World War as well as all the early jets. Speaking perfect German, he went to Germany in 1945 to test the Nazi jets, interviewing (among others) Hermann Goering and Hanna Reitsch. He flew the suicidally dangerous Me 163 rocket plane, and tested the first British jets. He would have been the first man to break the sound barrier, except that the British government cancelled the programme and gave the technology to America. His naval career continues to this day, as he advises on the new aircraft carrier design for the Royal Navy. A living legend among aviation enthusiasts, his amazing life story deserves to be told in full -- from crashing in front of Winston Churchill to unmasking a Neo-Nazi ring in the 1950s to his terrifying flights in primitive jets and rockets.
"Little wonder that when he arrived at Buckingham Palace at the grand old age of 28 for the fourth time, to receive the AFC in addition to the DSC, MBE and OBE he had already received, George VI greeted him with the words: ‘Not you again.’ "
He was quite recently the 3,000th person on Derset Island Discs. He came across as a lovely man with a modest sense of humour. In an age of instant celebrities, a true hero.
On iPlayer
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04nvgq1
BBC documentary....
A marvellous story, with very strong naval connections. Like being one of a handful of survivors after being torpedoed on his aircraft carrier.
He still has the world record for carrier landings, 65 years on. Apparently the US Navy had dedicated a pilot to beat the record, but had to be pulled out after 'only' 1600, because of a nervous breakdown.
He was the first to land a Mosquito on a carrier. But the experts weren't sure it was possible.
Mosquito stalling speed: 120 kts
Max carrier landing speed: 86 kts
So he landed the Mosquito on the carrier anyway, to prove them wrong.
Not once, but five times!
Publisher's blurb:
Eric "Winkle" Brown was on a University of Edinburgh exchange course in Germany in 1939, and the first he knew of the war was when the Gestapo came to arrest him. They released him, not realizing he was a pilot in the RAF volunteer reserve: and the rest is history. Eric Brown joined the Fleet Air Arm and went on to be the greatest test pilot in history, flying more different aircraft types than anyone else. He is the only man alive who has flown every major (and most minor) combat aircraft of the Second World War as well as all the early jets. Speaking perfect German, he went to Germany in 1945 to test the Nazi jets, interviewing (among others) Hermann Goering and Hanna Reitsch. He flew the suicidally dangerous Me 163 rocket plane, and tested the first British jets. He would have been the first man to break the sound barrier, except that the British government cancelled the programme and gave the technology to America. His naval career continues to this day, as he advises on the new aircraft carrier design for the Royal Navy. A living legend among aviation enthusiasts, his amazing life story deserves to be told in full -- from crashing in front of Winston Churchill to unmasking a Neo-Nazi ring in the 1950s to his terrifying flights in primitive jets and rockets.
"Little wonder that when he arrived at Buckingham Palace at the grand old age of 28 for the fourth time, to receive the AFC in addition to the DSC, MBE and OBE he had already received, George VI greeted him with the words: ‘Not you again.’ "
He was quite recently the 3,000th person on Derset Island Discs. He came across as a lovely man with a modest sense of humour. In an age of instant celebrities, a true hero.
On iPlayer
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04nvgq1
BBC documentary....
